Synopsis: When the U.S.S. Enterprise’s first officer is reported missing after going on a first contact mission, Captain Pike is ordered to return to lead the crew to save her.
This episode can be seen as an illustration of how the conscious ego integrates bits of unconscious material into itself to become stronger and make the psyche more whole.
In “Strange New Worlds” we find Captain Christopher Pike in Montana, where he has gone after completing the mission to send the U.S.S. Discovery into the future, in which he learned how he will die. This has caused him to retreat into himself. But when Admiral Robert April informs him that the first officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise, Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley (Number One) has gone missing after going on a secret first contact mission and orders him back to his command duties, he has no choice but to return. On the Enterprise Pike speaks with science officer, Mr. Spock. Pike tells him of the vision he received and Spock tells him that suffering can be transformed into insight. And that he should use it to be who he most essentially is. When the Enterprise arrives at the site of the first contact mission, Riley 279, Number One and the others are rescued, but the crew discovers that the inhabitants of Riley 279 have not created a warp drive, but a weapon with technology that was recovered by them from the location where Discovery was sent into the future. Pike tries to reason with the planetary leaders to give up the weapon, and is told that the one with the biggest stick wins. Pike then reveals the Enterprise to them, which unites the planet against this powerful threat. However, since it was Federation technology that was used to make the weapon, Pike offers the leaders of Riley 279 membership in the Federation.
In this episode, when Spock tells Pike to use his suffering to gain insight and to use it to become who he most essentially is, this can be seen as an explanation of individuation, a central theory of analytical psychology as conceived by Carl (C.G.) Jung. Jung wrote that the human psyche was composed of the conscious, of which the ego was the center, and the unconscious. He taught that when the conscious ego acknowledges and integrates bits of unconscious material into itself, then it becomes stronger and the psyche more whole. Here, we see Pike beginning the process, which can be quite unnerving and frightening, but necessary to become more of who we essentially are.
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